Best Practices for Outlook 2007
On the Outlook team, we are frequently asked: “what is the ‘right way’ to use Outlook?” Sure enough, there is no “right way” to work in Outlook—but, as the product team, we did design it with certain best practices in mind. Specifically, there are some best practices that make you more efficient at getting your job done while using Outlook, including:
The end result is a new article on Microsoft Office Online tailored towards end users for how to best use Outlook. (There is one long article that contains the full set of best practices and also a series of shorter articles focused on specific areas.) The last section of the article includes an FAQ to help explain some of the rationale behind the suggestions, along with help on how to migrate to this system from other ways of working.
The starting point of the entire document is based on some basic principles of good time management. Here is an excerpt (which can also be found in this article):
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Basic principles of good time management
Outlook 2007 is a tool to help you manage your e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks. As such, it is at the center of not only your communications but also your time-management. To get the most out of Outlook 2007, we suggest a few basic principles:
- Reduce the number of places you read e-mail Filter all of the messages you need to read into one place — your Inbox — using a series of rules.
- Let some e-mail pass by Use rules to send e-mail you need to read to your Inbox and then let the rest flow into distribution list folders, untouched. You don't need to read every message sent to you. Only the important ones should go to your Inbox. Remaining messages can be useful to keep — in case you get looped in on an issue, for example.
- Reduce the number of places where you manually file messages Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages.
- Process your e-mail using the 4 Ds When reading a message, decide whether to:
- Reduce your to-do list to one list Use a single to-do list and calendar to manage what you need to do.
- Work in batches Use categories to help you group similar tasks together.
- Use good judgment when sending e-mail Follow the dos and don'ts of writing great e-mail. Review your time and tasks regularly.
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Even if you don't subscribe to all of the best practices described here, following just a few will improve your experience with Outlook 2007.
Note for IT admins: the article includes Word and PDF versions of the online content which can be adapted to the needs of your customers. For example, if you don’t use SharePoint in your organization, you can remove all references to SharePoint in the Word copy of the document. You can then deploy the customized version.
Hopefully, you will find these best practices useful, and as always, we appreciate your feedback.
Enjoy!
Melissa MacBeth
Outlook Program Manager
